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Look past his shoulder to the window at upper left, with its farmhouse and grazing cattle, then back to his hand on the fur cuff.
The sitter is unknown, but his fur-lined robe and capuccio, a hood worn rolled up like a hat, were the usual dress of a prosperous Florentine merchant. Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, son of the painter Domenico, built the figure as a broad pyramid and lit it with a probing light learned from portraits by Leonardo and Raphael. He later kept the family workshop going well into the 1500s.
Oil, with tempera (?), on panel, transferred to canvas · 68.2 × 49.2 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · High Renaissance and Mannerism
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Details and source
- Museum title
- Portrait of a Gentleman
- Artist
- Ridolfo Ghirlandaio (Italian, 1483–1561)
- Date
- c. 1505
- Medium
- Oil, with tempera (?), on panel, transferred to canvas
- Dimensions
- 68.2 × 49.2 cm (26 11/16 × 19 3/8 in.); Framed: 94.7 × 77.5 × 8.3 cm (37 1/4 × 30 1/2 × 3 1/4 in.)
- Credit line
- Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Artist’s life 1483–1561
View in the AtlasGaller’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.